Ditch Your Trashy Avatar

(Newser)
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With businesses increasingly making use of virtual worlds like Second Life for long-distance training and conferences, it’s important for employees to show a little discretion with their choice of avatar, warns a report from tech advisory firm Gartner. “Because 3-D environments add the visual dimension, they will need to make sure that their policies also cover dress codes."

The report, picked up by CNET, adds that "avatars are creeping into business environments and will have far-reaching implications for enterprises, from policy to dress code, behavior, and computing platform requirements." It projects that 70% of businesses will regulate their employees' avatars by 2013. (Read more avatar stories.)

i agree it is really odd that this is where things are headed in the business world, especially that they're using Second Life as the venue of choice, but it's apparently more efficient so that people don't have to fly all over the world to meet. It saves travel time no matter how far you would've had to go. It makes sense because it's a free (or close to) way to videoconference, complete with voice and audiovisual aids... too bad most of SL as far as I can tell was initially made for avatar sex/porn!

yummines

Oct 8, 2009 11:28 AM CDT

i lol at the fact that people use second life as a buisness meeting place. besides, a bland text-only conversation would make the person think more about what to say, instead of being distracted by the other's avatar and things like that. entertainment and buisness shouldn't be combined for good results